"Dolores, like my own sweet sister, sit up and talk to me."
The bees hum on, the butterflies light here and there, now on this flower, now on that. Then sweet, gentle, pretty Dolores Litchfield stretches her white arms over her pretty head, yawns, and slips from the hammock.
"Now Zoe, you little worry, what is the trouble?"
Dropping into a garden chair, Dolores folds her white hands, to await further developments from her wilful, impulsive, harum-scarum sister Zoe.
"How handsome you are, Dolores. Do you think I shall ever be as beautiful as you, do you, Dolores?" the girl cries eagerly.
Dolores brushes a fly off her white dress and laughs softly.
"Ah, Zoe, what a little flatterer. One of those days I will be no comparison to my little sister; you will eclipse me in every respect." And Miss Litchfield smiles fondly at the troubled, eager face before her.
"Oh, I could never be like you, Dolores. I have a wicked temper, and a quick tongue; were I not to speak out what I think, why I should choke to death. I may have a pretty face and nice figure, but I can never be good, unselfish, forgiving, like you, never."
The girl shakes her head; she feels herself far from perfect. Since Dolores has come home from her foreign tour she has been her sister's ideal of all women.
"How I do wish he would come," the youngest Miss Litchfield says impatiently. "He is like the policemen in town, never around when they are wanted. Well," defiantly, "I don't care a snap of my finger if he comes or stays."